


The Strong Protect the Sweet

by Boldly_going_places



Category: Black Sails
Genre: I just found this sitting in my drive and thought it was cute, Miranda and james and thomas all live together and they have two daughters!AU, Multi, also ps this doesn't focus on flinthamiltons relationship so much, but not really specified, but whatever i hope you enjoy, family fic, it's a period piece, so here you go, so kind of gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 07:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14232081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boldly_going_places/pseuds/Boldly_going_places
Summary: Miranda, Thomas, and James--against better judgement--have two daughters, whom they love dearly but are very obviously from two different fathers. This is the story of a family staying together despite the eyes of society wanting to force them apart.





	The Strong Protect the Sweet

 

It was obvious from the start. Henrietta was born first. She was sickly and small and very much not wanting to die. She had bright blue eyes that squinted up at Miranda and a wail that even the midwife flinched at. 

Only two months later Isabella was born and everybody was surprised and Thomas was very nervous that his wife wasn’t going to make it, but she did. Isabella had a wail not quite like her sister (or half-sister, for that matter, because there was really no reason denying that Bella had flaming red hair), but she was much healthier and seemed to be contented after only a few minutes of crying.

The two girls were set in the same nursery and were in sync with their wails and sleeping, but Henry always woke first and wailed and wailed until Thomas or Miranda or James (mostly James) would coax them back to sleep or get them what they needed. 

\------------ 

Being halfs never bothered the girls. Both were as sharp as nails and they had it figured out when they were little. It didn’t change their insistence that they were most certainly twins, but Bella was just a born a bit later, and really, technicalities don’t quite matter do they?

Miranda was prepared to wait to tell them. Thomas and James and she had discussed it at length, conversations in a sealed away study while the girl’s slept. 

“They wouldn’t mind,” Thomas had said. “You know how much they adore each other.” 

“Yes, but even at their age social expectations can be devastating.” James sat across from his almost husband and almost wife. “We should let them live how they want to, not worry them with all this.” He gestured vaguely to the air around them. 

“It would be best coming from us and not some rude prick on the street,” Miranda said, leaning against Thomas’ chair.  “But James is right--we should give them time.” 

And so the counsel of concerned but frankly oblivious parents was concluded and they had come to a foolproof solution that really didn’t matter in the end anyways. 

When Henry was ten and four months and Bella was ten and two months they barged into their father’s study. Thomas and James were discussing some import of silks or what not and were delighted to see their wonderful daughters and their excuse for not working. Bella’s flaming red hair was braided down her back and Henry’s dark blonde hair was pulled into a sharp bun that hurt just a little bit. 

It was about noon and the sun was beating down on the roof of the house and both fathers knew that technically their daughters were supposed to be at lessons with their Latin tutor, but they quietly ignored that--it was far too hot to be learning anyhow. 

“Father,” Henry said, standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips. “I want to learn how to sword fight.” 

Bella had found her way to the bookshelf and pulled out a book of sonnets that Thomas kept around for wooing his lovers and giving the girls something to read other than what they would surely call ‘boring and dry.’ She plopped down on a floral armchair and all but ignored her sister’s demands. 

“Well--” Thomas began, but Henry flung her hand up to silence him. 

“Father, you cannot sword fight,” she said with all the indignation of a ten year and four month old. 

He raised his eyebrows in shock and James hid a shallowly contained smile. 

“And why might that be, dear Henrietta?” James asked, out of curiosity rather than offense. 

“She wants to beat up bad guys,” Bella answered, not looking up from her book. Henry pursed her lips and knotted her eyebrows and thought. 

“Yes, that sounds about right,” she said eventually. 

Thomas smiled down at the papers he was sorting through on his desk. Henry was small and out of health when she was little--from sheer spite of death, she had pulled through all that and come out to be considerably smaller than her sister, but still extremely wild and determined, and it came to no surprise that she would want to, as Bella so eloquently put it, ‘beat up bad guys.’

Whosoever those ‘bad guys’ were would need to be discussed at length, but Thomas doubted her assumptions would be based off of anything but personal experience and ‘bad guys’ probably meant specific people whom she had heard saying vile things about her family (no matter how hard they tried to not have their daughters hear those things, it really was futile). 

James smiled at his daughter. “I think that is a wonderful idea...however, we will discuss it with mother and father, as well.” 

Henry made a face and James only gave a Look. 

“Okay, I guess so,” she said and dropped her assertive pose and gave her father a hug. “Thank you!”

The latin tutor, John something or other chose this moment to discover the girls and both yelped and ran out the servant’s door. 

\---------------

Henrietta read the man quite well--rich, pretentious, and horny. Altogether drab. He was a visiting lord from the Massachusetts colony and he had been flirting mercilessly with her since he arrived at the estate. 

From across the room, Bella shot her a Sister Look (which was much different than Father Look or Mother Look and was more of a Do-You-Need-Saving Look, which, yes, Henry very much needed now, please and thank you). 

“Lord Richard Guyington?” Bella sidled over to her sister and the lord and gave a charming smile which Henry could never muster up for people she found particularly unpleasant. 

“That would be me. And you must be Lady Isabella Hamilton.” Richard took her hand and placed a delicate kiss upon it, maintaining eye contact the entire time. Bella, the sweet lady that she was, blushed and acted sheepish to such affection; Henry refrained from rolling her eyes--her sister was in no way unused to such affection from such men and she was in no means shy about it--but she kept her mouth shut and quietly disentangled herself from the man. Her sister was good at dealing with people like him. 

Just as she was about to slip from the room and find a nice little corner to be by herself, a hand reached out and stopped her gently. It was James. 

“Father,” she said, more out of surprise than anything else. “I was just--well, you see--”

“Thomas and I were looking for you, Henry. There’s a young man here who’s trained with Henry Blackwell: We thought you might be interested in speaking with him,” James said, unobtrusively coaxing his daughter back into the room.

“Truly?” She asked, letting herself be lead back to the room, looking around for father and not quite believing anything. 

“Would I lie to you, Henry?” James asked, and he seemed terribly earnest in a way that so many people are not. 

“I--no. No,” she said. 

Thomas was speaking to a tall, elegant man who nodded along to what he was saying and leaned ever so slightly on the table between them. His hair was in a long braid that was pulled into a bun and his outfit was meticulous. His frame was one of a fencer and she swept over his whole body--clearly, he had been training for a time and had refined himself to just what a person would expect from a fencer. She hated him already. 

“James! Oh, you’ve found her, wonderful,” Thomas said and pulled Henry over to greet the man. 

“You must be Lady Henrietta Hamilton. I am Lord Marcus DeMalley.” He reached out a hand for...a handshake. Informal. And yet Henry reached out and shook the man’s hand--it was delicate and very breakable but she just smiled like a good lady and kept her mouth shut. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.” She withdrew her hand and maintained eye contact with him, a vicious duel of dominance that Henry was not going to lose, not in her own damn house to some fop who thought he was so great. When he looked away, finally, she smirked and leaned against the table between them. 

“My father told me you trained with Henry Blackwall--that’s quite an impressive feat, if I do say so myself,” Henry said. “I’m sure you learned much from him...how to be a gentleman in more than just the ring.” 

“Yes, many people really need that lesson, as you may know,” Marcus said and took a well-timed and cutting sip of his wine. 

“Now, my dear lord, what need would I have to learn how to be a gentleman?” She asked sweetly, in such a way that the man’s face paled for a moment, his incongruities brought to light. She had no need for neatly wrapped insults. 

“I--well madam, that’s not what I--” He spluttered. 

“Oh? Were you meaning to insult my father?” A cocked head, big doe eyes, brows just a little knotted in the middle. “Surely you can come up with something better than that.” 

Marcus’ pursed his lips and looked her up and down, and met her scrutiny again. “You don’t want my honest insults to your fathers--father, of course, just one, right?” 

Henry’s face fell into a mask of judgement, lips turned down, one eyebrow raised ever so slightly. She said nothing. Thomas and James exchanged a quick, worried glance. 

“It’s impossible to have two fathers, isn’t it? Or do you not understand how children are made, because I really have no desire to explain to you,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse yourself from my home, I think we’d all be much happier.”

Marcus stared at her for a while and she stared right back. Eventually, the man just  _ hmph _ ed and stalked out of the room. But, in spite of rationality, Henry turned and called out to the man. “Lord DeMalley, a question of honor; if you would like to win yours back, please meet me at the tavern tomorrow at noon. I would like to challenge you to a proper fencing duel--just to see if Henry Blackwell really knew about fencing.” 

Marcus turned and glared at her before resuming his stalking out of the room angrily, hands balled into fists. Henry hummed and smiled to herself--a look to her fathers told her that she probably shouldn’t be smiling, but she couldn’t help it. Beating up pretentious rich boys was the reason she started fencing after all. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna be honest, I just found this among some old writings and thought it was pretty cute. I don't think I 'll continue this unless people really, really like it. Either way I hope you enjoyed and please leave a comment telling me what you think!


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